Gerhard Marcks

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of UNESCO’s nomination of the Weimar Bauhaus sites as World Heritage Sites, the Graphic Collection will be “opening” its depository to present some recently acquired Bauhaus-related treasures. 

In 2022/23 a couple from southern Germany made a significant private donation to our museums – a collection of early woodcuts, created by the Bauhaus master Gerhard Marcks during his time in Weimar. Gerhard Marcks was one of the first masters at the Bauhaus in Weimar and until 1925, headed its ceramics workshop which operated in Dornburg/Saale. The significance of this workshop is reflected in the first Bauhaus collection authorised by Walter Gropius in 1925 – a “centrepiece” of the Weimar Bauhaus Museum. More than half of the items in that collection originated from the ceramics workshop. As a member of the Masters’ Council, Marcks cultivated close contacts with other Bauhaus artists, in particular the German-American Lyonel Feininger who was placed in charge of the printing workshop in 1921 and inspired Marcks to take up artistic woodcutting. The commemorative exhibition presents a large selection of the treasures that resulted from this fruitful partnership and sheds light on how closely tied and mutually inspiring the Bauhaus masters were to one another.